Does time exist?

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If a cat could talk and was asked what time is it, what would he/she reply?

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[+3] - JLNobody - 05/07/2011I asked my cat how he thinks of and uses time and he just walked away. He's really into zen.

@TheEnlightenedOne,

TheEnlightenedOne wrote:

If a cat could talk and was asked what time is it, what would he/she reply?

Cats can't talk, except for mine, and only when Elvis is around...

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@TheEnlightenedOne,

I think mine would say the time is now. No past, no future, but NOW.

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@roger,

I think the cat would say: How should I know, I am just a cat. He then would purr, meow and drink milk.

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@roger,

roger wrote:

I think mine would say the time is now. No past, no future, but NOW.

It's always now... What time is it??? It is always now... If time is real it is always now... The past has ever less reality to it the further off it is until it is only a place the dead live, and not too well... The future has no reality at all, and exists only as dreams and nightmares... It is as limited as our imagination... Look at our futurism and scifi... We do no more than transport our daily drama into the future, and cannot in the least imagine a humanity improved by the improvement of technology... It is like saying: If I had a million dollars.... If you were still you, and I were still I, then that million would go the way all our money has always gone, buying us more pain and misery and less of joy...

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@TheEnlightenedOne,

TheEnlightenedOne wrote:

I think the cat would say: How should I know, I am just a cat. He then would purr, meow and drink milk.

Kittens drink milk, and cats usually avoid it because it gives them the shitz... And their toilet paper is in their mouths; what we would call a tongue. And who are we to heap them high with contumely when what they do for exercise and cleanliness we all do to have a job...

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@TheEnlightenedOne,

Cats certainly have a sense of time. You can't have memory without a sense of time, and cats will remember where good things are, and to stay away from things it doesn't like.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Cats certainly have a sense of time. You can't have memory without a sense of time, and cats will remember where good things are, and to stay away from things it doesn't like.

A sense of space is hardly a sense of time... Truly, if you have nine lives what is the waste of three or four???

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@Fido,

No Fido, memory requires a sense of time. The cat knows that the stove hurt it the past, and it understands that it is not hurting now. The cat also knows that machine hum means food is coming. Yet it knows that it does not have food now.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

No Fido, memory requires a sense of time. The cat knows that the stove hurt it the past, and it understands that it is not hurting now. The cat also knows that machine hum means food is coming. Yet it knows that it does not have food now.

Time is how we make sense of space, and space is how we make sense of time, but without making sense of either, that is- to plan what we will do in space and time, we could live at least as well as a cat does with the clock of nature ticking always...

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@Fido,

No...relation is how we make sense of time...space alone without any form of relation is and means nothing !

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@TheEnlightenedOne,

Time is about how change is taken to be organized, and thus involves the past and future. Change is a transition from one state (now past) to "this one" (possibly specious) to another (next, future). Like a movie, time can be viewed as all those different states existing at once -- like the total information of a movie recorded on a film or a disc, which is eternalism -- or with only the moment on the display screen being judged as "real", which is presentism.

Random changes that would seem nonsensical for one reason or another could be an example of a different organizing scheme than time, or no scheme at all. However, because of the role that memory plays in judgement or evaluation of change, even the idea of being able to discern an alternative framework to time (or lack of one) might be problematic. That is, due to its nature, memory may try to sort any bizarre collection of events into a causal chain of past, present, and future.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

No...relation is how we make sense of time...space alone without any form of relation is and means nothing !

Time is how change in space is understood... How much time does it take you to travel from point A to point B... How far is point A from Point B??? The distance is the time between... Think of the stars... How far are they apart... Light years... How long is a light year??? It is a distance traversed by light in a year, and amount of time...

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@Fido,

...well, but space is not relation...to some, the placer of relation...to others, the result of it...of course even if to assume "normal multidimensional space" is just the result of a more fundamental organization we still need at least an 1 dimensional axial set as a basis for any relation to occur between "things"...I personally can´t conceive of a world without extension...so if space it is an "effect", it is a damn good one and a limit older to our understanding...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

...well, but space is not relation...to some, the placer of relation...to others, the result of it...of course even if to assume "normal multidimensional space" is just the result of a more fundamental organization we still need at least an 1 dimensional axial set as a basis for any relation to occur between "things"...I personally can´t conceive of a world without extension...so if space it is an "effect", it is a damn good one and a limit older to our understanding...

I don't think I said it was a relation, but a form of relationship, a means of relating time to our reality since all that happens, all meaning, and our lives happens in space and time, with neither one understandable except in terms of the other...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

above, I am sorry for the quick writing consequences in spelling...it should read "place holder"...

Fido I miss the form word behind "of relation"...it makes a difference, but still was in need of some clarification...

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@TheEnlightenedOne,

Mjao?

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mathematically , yes

physically , NO

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@Fido,

I don't believe space exists. Do you think a cat has any sense of space?

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@TheEnlightenedOne,

The cat would say something on the line of ...
"It's time to stop asking these goofy and useless philosophy questions and feed me already! And none of that Fancy Feast crap either! Can't you afford a decent can of pink salmon for a change?!"

1 Reply

Does time exist?

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